130 EVIDENCES AS TO DATE OF VII 



present considerable difficulties. In some counties they are 

 to be found as early as 1746, in some not till much later, in 

 some there are serious gaps. Some, and especially many 

 of the earlier ones, do not distinguish between owners and 

 occupiers. Nor are the returns always uniform. In some 

 the annual value, in some the actual amount of the tax 

 paid, is taken as the basis of the return. Sometimes both 



pound should be taken to represent a fixed sum 1,484,015 Is. 

 and that the quota to be paid by each district should be the same as 

 it had been in 1692, the date of the last assessment. The quotas thus 

 apportioned were very unequal, because the basis of assessment was 

 that fixed by the Long Parliament when the burden of the tax fell on 

 those counties which supported the parliamentary cause ; thus the 

 quotas of London and Middlesex are the highest, those of the Northern 

 counties and the West the lowest. 



From that date till 1798 the tax was granted annually at varying 

 rates from Is. to 4s. in the pound. Then Pitt made it perpetual at 4s. 

 while he allowed it to be redeemed at fifteen years' purchase. Mean- 

 while, by Will. & Mary 9-10, 10-11, the tax on personal property, 

 which had fallen into disuse, had been made a separate tax annually 

 granted, but it produced so little owing to the difficulty of assessment 

 that it was repealed in 1733, while that on offices lasted till 1876. 

 Cf. Bourdon, Land Tax. 



The Land Tax assessments exist for the following counties : 



.. since 1781 



1773 



1758 



1767 



174C 



,, 1760 



176C. 



.. 1791! 



1785 



,, 1780 







.. 1774 



.. 1790 



.. 1780 



From the other counties I have received no information. 



